On 8/26/25 6:24 PM, Karen Lewellen wrote:
Hi all,
Was going to mark this as off topic. then I realized it may be where
many of you engage with Debian.
Having a discussion on the board of the lug in my area.
someone feels lugs are largely failing.
Do you find this to be true?
If not, why not?
Thanks,
Karen
Back in 1996, I helped found the Suncoast Linux Users Group (SLUG) in
the Tampa Bay area of Florida, USA. At our first meeting, I handed out a
survey asking why people would want to be part of this group and attend
meetings. There were two answers. First, people wanted to be able to
hang out with other people who had the same interest. Second, they
wanted help with Linux. At the time, Linux could be devilishly hard to
get installed and working. We had monthly meetings in three different
locations, and people were encouraged to bring their setups in for help
in getting things working. We several mailing lists, and a website.
I ran that group for about ten years, and then turned it over to someone
who mostly shut it down. It has been defunct now for over a decade.
My take on the decline of LUGs is that Linux got too easy to set up and
use. I've been using Debian for decades, and I reinstall every time
Debian changes versions. I haven't had install problems in years and
years. Everything just works. The system figures out my graphics card,
my sound card (on the motherboard), my ethernet connections, etc. These
things used to be nightmares for a lot of people. Now they're not.
There probably still is the factor that people would like to hang out
with others with similar interests. But at the time when LUGs were
popular, members were mostly hobbyists. It was definitely a niche
pursuit. Now Linux, while only having 6-8% of the desktop market, is
much more "mainstream". Linuxers are less interested in the guts of the
system and how it works than they are in just getting work done. And
that's far easier now than it used to be.
Someone mentioned SVLUG during the discussion. They have a website, but
it doesn't look like they've had meetings in years, so I'd consider them
dormant. And I don't personally know of any U.S. based LUGs which are
still operating.
Paul
--
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster
https://codeberg.org/paulmfoster
https://github.com/paulmfoster
